Betty Calandruccio's Obituary
Betty Calandruccio passed away in peace with the loving support of her close family on Sunday, December 7. Her full and energetic life of friendships, creative productivity, and family devotion lives on in the many lives that she touched with her endearingly compassionate personality and incomparable good humor.She was born in Jersey City, N. J. July 18, 1924. “Janie”, as she was called in her youth, grew-up in Tenafly, N.J. with her parents Howard Altenberger and Edith Curran Altenberger as an only child. She was a graduate of Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia where she earned her B.S. degree in Physical Education with minors in English and Art. Art and P.E. as well as horse-back riding were a constant part of her early life. Her first teaching position at Larson Junior College in New Haven, Connecticut led to her ultimately serving as its Director of Health and Physical Education. It was in New Haven that she met Rocco A. Calandruccio (deceased, ’07), a medical student at Yale who would become her husband. They married in Cooperstown, N. Y. in 1948 and moved to Memphis in 1949 so that he might begin his training as an orthopaedic surgeon at the Campbell Clinic.In Memphis, she founded the P.E. programs at the former Oakville and Capleville Elementary Schools and later was asked to serve as the Director of the P.E. Department at Southwestern (now Rhodes) College. Additionally, she worked as counselor at the Happy Day Camp for Girls, was a constant referee for local woman’s basketball games, and taught swimming to Army personnel families at the Army Depot in those early years in Memphis. Soon after, Dr. Calandruccio entered the military taking them to Washington D.C., but they returned to Memphis after only 2 years away.She spent the rest of her life in Memphis where she continued her active life involvement in a diversity of things such as Cub Scout Den Mother, Mother’s Club President, School Board Trustee, and at Grace St.-Luke’s Episcopal Church – Church Vestry, Chair of the Bazaar, Building Committee and Altar Guild. She was involved in and served as an officer in numerous local organizations including the Memphis and Shelby County Medical Auxiliary, Le Bonheur Club, Central Gardens Association, Memphis Symphony League, Midtown Garden Club, and Beaux-Arts. Her involvement in Rhodes College by sitting on the President’s Council, being a member of the Red and Black Society, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Margaret Hyde Council at Rhodes was a significant source of pride for her. The Betty Calandruccio Scholarship Fund stands there as a living testimony to that devotion.Her Memphis City civic activities included being a Board Member of the Downtown Association, Court Square Revitalization Committee, Mid-America Mall Planning Committee, and the Lucius Burch Committee to save Shelby Farms. She initiated a “Wall Art Program” to improve the appearance of buildings and was asked by then Mayor Wyeth Chandler to serve as Board Member of the Memphis City Beautiful Commission. She later served as Chairman for two years, a position she took-on with focused commitment. She held her accomplishments there in great pride the rest of her life. She and her husband, “Roc”, supported numerous local organizations including the St. Jude Hospital, the Church Health Center, LeMoyne-Owen College, St. George’s School, Memphis University School, the Red Cross, United Way, the Campbell Foundation, the Dixon Gallery, the Brooks Museum of Art, and underwrote the a special patient room at the Purdue Center for Women of the Salvation Army that they dedicated to their parents.Betty Cal, as her friends endearingly called her, was also an inspiring mother and a hands-on home-maker. She and “Roc” were continually involved in home renovations and gardening projects, most of which she directed while he was practicing medicine at the Campbell Clinic. They, along with their children, touched every surface of their landmark home at 1542 Harbert Avenue where she applied her artistic talents in everything from wall papering to scraping paint and painting, setting tile, laying brick, mixing concrete, tearing-out and re-locating walls and innumerable projects. Her gardening was and remained a constant love and healthful undertaking there and at the two successive homes they owned in Memphis.She was the consummate bargain hunter which led her to finding numerous treasures and many forlorn but valuable antiques that she painstakingly restored for personal use. Her thrift store scavenging became famous with friends, some of whom became companions on her weekly circuits around town and later enthusiasts themselves.Betty Cal loved to dance and invariably lead the charge to the tiles. She lived and smiled like a teen to the very end with the get-up-n-go attitude that characterized her life. Her indomitable spirit lives on in her three children – Peter (Stephanie), Jim (Louise) and Cathy Calandruccio Garner (Warwick) and their respective families of six grand children (Rocco & Annie, Collier & Kay, Derick & Natalie) and two great grandchildren (Ava Sophia & Rocco).“Life Goes On” was her preferred response to any and all challenges, and so it does.Memorial Services will be held this Saturday, December 13, 2014 at Grace St. Luke’s Episcopal Church with Visitation at 10:00 in the Great Hall and Services following at 11:00 in the Sanctuary.In lieu of flowers, the family would ask that donations be made to the Betty Calandruccio Scholarship Fund at Rhodes College, the Trezevant Foundation, or the charity of their choice.Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Park Funeral Home and Cemetery, 5668 Poplar Ave. Memphis, TN 38119, “Behind the Stone Wall.”
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